Octoberfest

Chairman of the Board by Helen Frankenthaler at MoMA

my god, i've seen so much great art around the city this month! partially becuz i've been hitting the museums like a mad woman. last year i clandestinely acquired a pass that gets me into just about every museum for free that expires at the end of this month!....eeek! what's an artist to do? really, nyc should have some sort of paid yearly pass for residents that gives you free museum admission. but moving on....below are some highlights from this month's shows around town. i still plan on hitting the Brooklyn Museum of Art this week...so much art to see, so little time!

i walked into MoMA and was floored by the beauty above. look at that expanse of color and lovely 'white space'! this particular jaunt thru the museum fed my current interest in showcasing painting materials and their glory. the raw material itself expresses so much and the simplicity of form reinforces it. this painting really has immense grace. i'm reeducating myself on the grand poobahs of modern painting...you'll find more of the mastahs and others below.

Elegy to the Spanish Republic, 108 by Robert Motherwell at MoMA

BAM, black broad color and shape! i have always wanted to create painting w/just black, white, ocher and baby blue. to me, those colors say Motherwell. i love the mix of large loose form and rectilinear shapes.

Chief by Franz Kline at MoMA

Three Color Curl by Walead Beshty at MoMA

the pure color in his photographs is breathtaking. all of it is done in the dark room - no photoslop here.

No. 10 by Mark Rothko at MoMA

Slow Swirl at the Edge of the Sea by Mark Rothko at MoMA

Summation by Arshile Gorky at MoMA

on to the Whitney....

Lucinda Childs: Dance (installation view) at The Whitney

amazing to see the preliminary drawings, ideas and sketches by all 3 artists: Lucinda Childs, Sol Lewitt, and Phillip Glass. sat there for the longest time watching the performance - excellent!

Untitled (Study for Mosquitoes) by Steve Wolfe at The Whitney

this ain't just an old book cover glued to paper people, Mr Wolfe here is a master of trompe l'oeil. the exhibition included a few 'records' too. even w/out at first knowing that he lovely created all the cracks and tears, i really dug his collages. the colors and compositions are fantastic. too bad the whitney isn't a little more generous w/photos on their site. i'm not even sure if the above was at the show, but was all i could find online.

David Wojnarowics, Untitled at the Whitney

also on view at The Whitney is A Few Frames; Photography and the Contact Sheet. really great stuff, but once again, sense the whitney is not so generous w/images all i got is this description from their website,

the photographic contact or proof sheet with its apparent repetition is a recurring theme, its grid the underpinning for juxtapositions that may or may not have actually occurred as sequential exposures.






and to The Met....

The Milkmaid byJohannes Vermeer at The Met
,looked like it was lit from behind! i know a lot of people think vermeer is over rated; don't care, his paintings are lovely to look at. the frick has some nice ones too.

Louise Adele Gould by Augustus Saint-Gaudens at the Met

....yep, there's more....



Kandinsky at the Guggenheim....



Couple Riding

Several Circles (Einige Kreise)

Composition 8 (Komposition 8)






In the Black Square (Im schwarzen Viereck)







Mystery Sand Mosaic, by Shorty Lungkarta Tjungurrayi at The Grey Art Gallery

little dots made up most of all the paintings in this show - beautiful! each painting represented a myth/story or other cultural belief.